:רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר הַקַּפָּר אוֹמֵר:  הַקִּנְאָה וְהַתַּאֲוָה וְהַכָּבוֹד מוֹצִיאִין אֶת הָאָדָם מִן הָעוֹלָם

Rabbi Elazar haKappar said: envy, desire and [the pursuit of] honor take a person out of the world.

– Pirkei Avos 4:21

According to the Vilna Gaon, this mishnah is the key to understanding the opening three lines of Elokai Netzor, each of which ask Hashem for help avoiding one of these faults.

That’s one dimension. The other is that for each kind of character flaw we ask for help in two areas: (1) not expressing the fault, and (2) not even harboring it internally.

Qin’ah – Envy

נְצוֹר לְשׁוֹנִי מֵרָע – “Stop my tongue from [speaking] evil” against someone I am envious of. Speaking badly about someone is expressing the qin’ah.
וּשְׂפָתַי מִדַּבֵּר מִרְמָה – and my lips from speaking with duplicity. When I duplicitously not say what I am feeling, I can speak well of someone even though internally I am still feeling qinah.

The first line is an adaptation of a pasuq in Tehillim (34:14), said on Shabbos and Yom Tov in “LeDavid”, added to Shacharis. However, David says that the person who wants to learn what yir’as Hashem is (v. 12) desires a life of seeing good (v.13), “נְצֹ֣ר לְשׁוֹנְךָ֣ מֵרָ֑ע וּ֝שְׂפָתֶ֗יךָ מִדַּבֵּ֥ר מִרְמָֽה” to stop his own tongue from speaking evil, and his lips from speaking with duplicity. Here, instead, we are asking for Hashem’s assistance.

I suggested when we looked at “Hashem sefasai tiftach“, it seems that “safah“, lips, the outer edge of the mouth, for speaking superficially. Whereas the lashon, the tongue, is more inside the mouth. Which would also explain why we talk about lips asking that Hashem stop “my lips from speaking with duplicity”. Mirmah – duplicity is saying something on the outside that we aren’t feeling.

Kavod – Honor

The next line asks for help dealing with our need for honor:

וְלִמְקַלְ֒לַי נַפְשִׁי תִדּוֹם – “and to those who curse me, let my soul be silent” and not need to seek their validation
וְנַפְשִׁי כֶּעָפָר לַכֹּל תִּהְיֶה – “and may my soul be like dust for all”.

Not responding to those who slight you – external expression.

And seeing oneself as dust for all – an internal attitude.

Notice I am pairing the words “ke’afar lakol” together. To see myself as “dust for all”. Not pairing “lakol tihyeh” that my soul should be like dust for everyone. The idea is to see myself as a public resource, not ch”v that everyone else sees me as their doormat.

Ta’avah – Desire

פְּתַח לִבִּי בְּתוֹרָתֶֽךָ – “open my heart with your Torah” – internal;
וּבְמִצְוֹתֶֽיךָ תִּרְדֹּף נַפְשִׁי – “and through your mitzvos may my soul conduct its pursuit” – external expression.

Another nusach: וְאַחֲרֵי מִצְווֹתֶיךָ – and may my soul pursue after your mitzvos. The first is including pursuits that when done correctly have value, even though they are not mitzvos themselves.

There are two differences between this line (in either form) and the previous ones.

Here we do not ask Hashem to help us battle the negative. There is no call for Him to aid our self-control, which would have been more like asking not to include negative feelings toward others in our speech or not needing to respond to those who impugn our honor. In this line ask for help us to chase things of greater value instead of blindling following based desires.

Also, in this line the internal experience, a heart opened by Torah, comes before the external expression of pursuing positive desires rather than negative ones.

I think the two are linked.

We don’t ask for an end to the negative desires because they aren’t inherently negative. Physical desires have value, if they are kept as the means and not made into one’s purpose in life. Instead, we ask for higher goals and let the desires take their roles in the resulting hierarchy.

When it comes to avoiding doing the wrong thing, we can avoid it out of a sense of discipline even though we haven’t yet fixed the desire yet. What Rav Yisrael Salanter calls “kibbush hayeitzer – conquering the yeitzer hara“, acting despite still having the wrong desire. But that model falls apart when asking for help about the concept of fixing desire itself. Here we first need the right desire, then we can talk about the external expression of pursuing it in the right way.

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When we say Elokai Netzor, Mar beRei Deravina’s personal requests for after Shemoneh Esrei, we open with wanting to fix the key desires that spiral downward. The ruin our experience in both this world and the next. Envy. Desire. And the pursuit of Honor.